Sinbad Gully
- Isaac Muller-Wild
- 3 days ago
- 3 min read
In February, Peter Le and I went for a mission into the famed Sinbad Gully. Tucked away near Lawrenny Peaks and across Milford Sound, it doesn’t see much traffic on account of the long approach. Having frothed over Climber magazine articles of the place, it was epic to get finally get in there and have a play!
Getting there (and back):
Step one is to get across the sound. If you’ve got some kind of water craft in your possession, whether it be a kayak, packraft or warehouse inflatable unicorn, then this is easy.
Approach beta on Climbnz is pretty accurate. We took 4 hours to the head of the valley along an excellent track. You eventually pop out into the river, staying on the true right. Eventually you’ll hit some rock slabs which are too annoying to climb, and dip into the bush to follow the obvious spur. Follow this all the way up to the bushline: we think there’s a vague track, but I’m not sure how consistent it might be, as we went a different way. Don’t follow the river all the way up into the gulley: you’ll end up with a heinous climb through vertical bush. Once you pop out of the bush, traverse across through more scrub towards the bivvy rock, which sits fairly low in the basin.
For the way out, Climbnz lists a descent down straight down the gulley. This is NOT a braindead rap descent. It was my first time canyoning (unbeknownst to me) so we found spotting some of the anchors unintuitive, and we couldn’t locate the fixed nut at all (well, we found one, but it came out with a firm tug). You most definitely need to have all your kit in drybags, and have clothes that you don’t mind potentially getting wet. One abseil put us on top of a large pool, which I tried to traverse over to get to shore. This ended with me going for a swim and drowning my phone :(. Additionally, be careful of your rope ends, as if you just huck them into the water rock climbing style, theres a risk they could get snagged in the boulders and rushing water. The walk down the gulley is very easy this way however.
The Hangout:
The bivvy rock is pretty good, and would fit four people. You could also pitch a tent on top if its full or you feel like carrying more gear in. There’s a couple of 20L water containers and the walk to water is about 5 or 10 minutes. Kea hang out here, so definitely secure all your kit when out climbing lest it becomes an interactive learning experience for said parrots.
The Climbing:
It’s a 15 or 20 minute walk from the rock biv over to the wall. The first thing you’ll notice is that this thang is CRANKED!! That sh*t is steep, and really does overhang the whole dang way.
We started with Rainmaker (23). The first two pitches can be linked together if you have double ropes and think about it a little bit. The route is a bit traversy, well protected, and has absolutely phenomenal climbing pretty much every step of the way. The crux pitch is an absolute stunner. You’ll get rained on every a little now and then by the waterfall, which you actually climb behind on pitch 8! Speaking of pitch 8, that’s where we retreated, as the start of pitch 9 was dripping with water, overhanging, and covered in moss.
Retreating from here was very doable, but a bit annoying on account of all the traversing. If you stop at the base of the crux pitch you’ll hose yourself, so don’t do that and keep going to the top of Pitch 4. Think about how you set the ropes for this rap also, as it’s quite liable to get stuck. We could get straight back to the ground from the P2 belay with double 60s.
Next we played around on the first couple of pitches of Shadowland. Again, the rock quality and movement is phenomenal, and well protected. Abseiling this route would be much easier than Rainmaker, but still very steep, so watch out for that.
Overall:
Is it worth the walk? If you like steep climbing on amazing rock in an incredible corner of Fiordland, then yes, most definitely. The approach is long but really not that bad and the climbing is most definitely top class. Get in there!!!
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